00:00These cars are the holy grail of the Corvette collectors.
00:13We basically have a museum of Corvettes here every year from 1953 all the way through 1989.
00:21This remarkable chronological collection of 36 Corvettes has been hidden for over 20 years.
00:27Originally given away as a prize by music channel VH1 in 1989, the cars were soon bought
00:34by artist Peter Max, whose plans to paint them never came to fruition.
00:39The new owners are restoring the vehicles to their former glory and Chris Mazzilli, a
00:43Corvette expert, is consulting on the project.
00:46Some of these cars are going to need to be cleaned up, have the fluids changed.
00:50Some cars are going to need a year's worth of work and some cars are going to need two
00:53weeks worth of work.
00:56First we'll start off with the most valuable car in the collection, a 1953 Corvette.
01:01This car is one of 300 that were made and it's probably going to be worth somewhere around
01:06a half a million dollars when the restoration is done.
01:09It's the crown jewel of the collection.
01:11Unfortunately for us it's requiring the most amount of work and we're putting a substantial
01:16amount of money, well over six figures into that one individual car.
01:20So we think by the time we get done with the restoration we'll have one of the most valuable
01:241953's in the world.
01:26However, not all of the cars require so much work.
01:30This next Corvette is a 66 Coupe, it's one of my favorite colors.
01:34This is called Nassau Blue and it has a white interior and that's the color combination it
01:39came from the factory with.
01:41The paint is not perfect on it but it's a pretty solid original car.
01:44This next car is a 1964 Corvette Coupe.
01:47This car originally was ermine white but now it's painted tuxedo black.
01:52This car also has its original engine.
01:54It's a 327, 300 horsepower engine.
01:57It's the one that the car was born with and it also has a four speed transmission and that's
02:02the correct transmission that came with the car.
02:05So the interior in this car was in pretty good original condition.
02:09What also makes it unique is it's silver leather and not a lot of cars came with silver leather
02:14interior that particular year.
02:17Many of the Corvettes are yet to be restored and are covered in 20 years worth of dust which
02:22isn't as bad as it sounds.
02:23The fact of the matter is the dust is what ended up preventing the paint from being ruined
02:28so when we start washing these off and cleaning them with the special solution the paint on
02:33almost all of them is in perfect condition so that was a pleasant surprise when we started
02:38working on the first couple of cars.
02:40When the restoration is complete how much would the collection be worth?
02:44It's a very very valuable collection.
02:46They're folklore.
02:47People know about the cars so it's very hard to put a dollar amount on the cars because
02:50who knows what the value of Peter Max and VH1 having these cars but they're worth a lot.
02:56So what does the future hold for these 36 Corvettes?
03:00We're being approached by people from all over the world who are interested in potentially
03:04buying it or have other creative ideas for the collection.
03:07So our original plan was to take all of them get them into working condition and then go
03:11to the big auction houses but right now we're pretty much keeping our options open.
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